Snapchat Releases Lenses That Work With TrueDepth Camera iPhone X

Snap has released Lenses for Snapchat that use the iPhone X’s TrueDepth camera to track facial expressions. As a result, the Lenses should work better than the versions without that feature.

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It concerns three Lenses with masks, writes The Verge. Snapchat tracks facial movements with the TrueDepth camera and lets the masks move with you, making them appear more real than other smartphones can. The Lenses don’t appear to be testing yet, making it impossible to verify the claim.

In addition to a regular front camera for images, the TrueDepth camera also uses a dot projector to project tens of thousands of dots on the face with infrared. It can read an infrared camera in order to build an image of the face on the basis of markers – eyes, nose and mouth – and to see how users make facial expressions.

Apple had shown Snapchat as an example during the iPhone X announcement, but the Lenses were not available until now. It is unknown why the release of the masks took five months. The iPhone X came out in November last year. The manufacturer uses the TrueDepth camera itself for Anomoji, i.e. emojis that move with the user’s face, and authentication via Face ID.